![]() HERRING: That's a question for future linguists. So bottom line, is the thumbs-up emoji really dead? Professor Herring says. Does my thumbs-up bother you? What about the check mark? Why can't people just use their words? Do you think I'm being passive-aggressive when I just say OK? Not when you say OK, but when you say k, that's aggressive. I mean, we spent some quality time here at WEEKEND EDITION working through this. But the conversations sparked by those clickbait articles - like how people understand each other - were real. RASCOE: Now, a lot of young people online say they aren't that bothered by the thumbs-up emoji. They're always generating new expressions and new words and new ways of speaking to distinguish themselves in opposition to other groups that are perceived as being out of it or square, as we used to say back in the day. HERRING: It's characteristic of what young people do with language. RASCOE: Emojis are a part of modern language, and they can mean many things to many people all at once. HERRING: I think the battle here is really about the connotations of the emoji, the pragmatic meanings. She's a linguistics professor at Indiana University who specializes in digital communication. So, yeah, laughing to death, right? That's a great example. So now they need something that has a stronger impact, that's more outrageous or more over-the-top. SUSAN HERRING: So it's been bleached of its impact. Like, the skull face and the actually, like, sobbing emoji I feel just have more personality than just, like, haha. It doesn't feel as expressive as other things you can use. RASCOE: His daughter hates the thumbs-up, and she thinks the crying laughing emoji is weak. There's, like - there's an additional layer of kind of, like, sarcasm. ![]() ![]() It's very, like, straight, the way that I interpret it. And for me, like, the grimacing face just means, like, urgh, something bad is happening. JONAS DOWNEY: We sort of take it for granted thumbs-up means thumbs-up. Elder millennial Jonas Downey read one of the articles and decided to see if his 13-year-old daughter's interpretation of certain emojis differed from his. We may be victims of clickbait intended to stir up dissension between young and old, left and right, after someone dug up an old Reddit thread and presented it as gospel last week. PS - For those of you who aren’t in the know, I mail out these blogs 3x a week, and lemme tell you, they’re a real party, so, if you’d like to get in on this, sign up for it here and I’ll throw in a free gift for you.So you may have heard the thumbs-up emoji is dead, as in not cool - don't do it. I’m open to hearing from all sides on this and appreciate your response! ![]() With that in mind, here’s my question to you:Īm I crazy for feeling dismissed? Or, is this practice nothing more than the new etiquette for properly ending conversations while engaging on all social media platforms? And that line of thinking is what I preach to every client that sets foot in front of my camera. It’s the same philosophy I employ with image content - it punctuates and enhances my thought leadership, not replaces and renders it moot. The key point here being that I leverage emoji’s to PUNCTUATE, not REPLACE my actual words and sentiments. If you take even 5 minutes to zip through my various social media platforms I use emoji’s to punctuate most of my engagement in my own posts, as well as others. I get that feeling, but still, it left me questioning how invested they are in getting to know me.ĭon’t get me wrong, I love emoji’s (and thumbs up "likes," too). I felt like I was being abruptly dismissed amid a sea of other activities in their lives, as if they ready to swiftly move on to their other tasks for the day. Normally, I end my introductory emails with a positive goodbye, something quick and simple, but, always with words.Ībout 70-75% of these folks followed up my goodbye with a “thumbs up” emoji, and left it at that.įor some reason, the “thumbs up” goodbye irked me and left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth. Yay, new people - my people - I was very excited to engage! Performance coaches, marketing managers, TEDx Speakers, and an author of 2 books - these are the types of thought leaders that were reaching out to me. The other day I was catching up on my Linkedin connection requests, and had quite a few to go through.Īs I was writing a “thanks for connecting, how can I serve you?” introductory email to each, some of these new connections contacted me via direct message. It involves the good ol' thumbs up symbol.
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